chapter 18: waiting line analysis Flashcards
when do waiting lines occur?
when there is a temporary imbalance between supply (capacity) and demand
downsides of waiting lines
add to the cost of operation
they reflect negatively on customer service
loss of goodwill
loss of business due to customers refusing to wait and going elsewhere
queueing theory
a mathematical approach to the analysis of waiting lines
Why Is There Waiting?
arrival times and service durations exhibit a high degree of variability
the system at times becomes temporarily overloaded, giving rise to waiting lines; at other times, the system is idle because there are no customers
The goal of queueing analysis
to minimize total costs
The two types of costs in a queueing situation
“cost” of customers waiting for service
cost of provision of capacity
ways management can reduce their customers’ perception of the waiting time
- Determine the acceptable wait time for the operation
- Try to keep the waiting time experienced by a customer consistent over time
- Install distractions that entertain and involve customers
- Inform the customer of the cause of an abnormal wait and peak times
- Keep the line moving continuously
- Use first come, first served discipline (fairness is important)
- Allow customers to serve themselves
- Prepare the customers for service before the actual service
- Make people conscious of time only if they overestimate the wait time.
- Keep staff who are not serving customers out of sight.
- Try to segment customers by personality
- Never underestimate the power of a friendly and attentive server
ways in which management can reduce waiting times by fixing the system constraints
Use temporary workers
Shift demand
Standardize the service
Look for a bottleneck
Model choice is dependent on which characteristics of the waiting line system under investigation
- Potential number of customers.
- Number of servers and structure of queueing system.
- Arrival and service patterns.
4 . Queue discipline (i.e., order of service).
an infinite source of customers situation
the potential number of customers greatly exceeds system capacity
a finite source of customers situation
When the potential number of customers is limited
Each server in the queueing system can handle how many customers at a time?
can handle one customer at a time
queueing system can have how many servers?
single or multiple serνers
true or false
Another distinctive of the queueing system characteristic is the number of steps or phases in a queueing system
true
advantage of a joint line of people waiting leading to multiple servers
first come first serve (fairness)
wait time will be less